Whose Baby Is Solyndra?

Solyndra has been the boogeyman for everything wrong with President Obama’s investment in America. Dana Milbank straightens things out.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah used Solyndra to argue against worker-training benefits. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina used it to argue that the federal government should stay out of autism research. Disaster relief, cancer treatments, you name it: Solyndra has been an argument against them.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell used Solyndra as an example of why we should cut a loan guarantee program that he voted for.

Solyndra was cleared to participate in this loan-guarantee program by President George W. Bush’s administration. He also did not mention that the legislation creating the loan-guarantee program, approved by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005, received yes votes from — wait for it — DeMint, Hatch and McConnell.

It’s okay to give the Obama administration some grief on Solyndra, but to act as though it is this White House alone that deserves blame is to igore the bipartisan nature of what led to the problem.